Expect heads to turn as LeBron James leads Cavs into Boston

Mike Fine

Monday

Nov 26, 2007 at 12:01 AMNov 26, 2007 at 6:23 PM

You're watching the Cleveland Cavaliers when you catch a glimpse of what you think is a spectacular older player, one who can do it all and do it exceptionally. The player is 22-year-old LeBron James, perhaps the most spectacular player in the NBA today -- Kobe Bryant, Kevin Garnett, Tim Duncan, Allen Iverson and whoever else you want to put on your list notwithstanding.

You’re a basketball fan who has just returned from a five-year stint helping the natives in the Amazon rainforest. It’s great to be back, good to get a hot dog and a Coke, and nice say hello to old friends and take in an NBA game.

You're watching the Cleveland Cavaliers, a collection of pretty good players whom you've never seen, when you catch a glimpse of what you think is a spectacular older player, one who can do it all and do it exceptionally.

“I don't remember him from six years ago,” you say. “Must be a late bloomer.”

The player is 22-year-old LeBron James, perhaps the most spectacular player in the NBA today -- Kobe Bryant, Kevin Garnett, Tim Duncan, Allen Iverson and whoever else you want to put on your list notwithstanding.

He's no late bloomer, drafted straight out of high school at the age of 18. He was on the cover of Sports Illustrated while still at St. Vincent-St. Mary High School in Akron, Ohio. His high school games were featured on ESPN. He was flat-out the most heralded high school basketball player of all time, and the beauty of it is that he didn't skip a beat once he was drafted by the Cavs in 2003.

In his rookie season, he averaged 20.9 points, 5.5 rebounds and 5.9 assists -- turning heads wherever he went. He's been doing it ever since, and he'll do it again Tuesday night when his Cavs host the new Celtics at Quickens Loans Arena.

Against the old Celtics, he averaged 29.8 points, 6.2 rebounds and 5.5 assists in 12 games. What he does against the new Celtics, who lead the NBA in defense, is anyone's guess, but against everyone else this season he's averaging 31.3 points, 8.3 rebounds and 8.1 assists after coming off back-to-back triple-doubles. The last NBA player to do that? Michael Jordan in 1989.

“He might be the only guy I've seen that looks like he was engineered to play basketball,” said Indiana's Danny Granger, who guarded James in his team's loss to the Cavs on Sunday. “He's a phenomenal player.”

If the Celtics hadn't already figured that out, they did last Feb. 15, when they dropped a 113-109 double-overtime contest to James and the Cavs.

The Celtics won games last season about as frequently as they took the court wearing tutus, but on this night, James and Paul Pierce were locked up in what could only be described as a classic duel. The pair went at it for 58 minutes, James finishing a 43-point, 12-rebound, 11-assist performance. Pierce scored 50, reminiscent of his 48-point outing against the Nets on Dec. 1, 2001, when he scored 46 in the second half.

Pierce outscored James, 17-7, in the fourth quarter, but by the time it ended, James had reasserted himself, scoring four points over the final minute of the second OT. Pierce was limited to one free throw after an earlier hoop before fouling out on a tough call, guarding James at that one-minute mark.

“When two All-Stars are on the court at the same time,” Pierce said, “there's always a sense of pride. We both have the utmost respect for one another. Our competitive juices come out. What can I say? It was a great game by both of us.”

“I had to take the challenge,” James said. “He was doing everything he wanted, but every time he went to make a shot, even if he was making it, I made sure I had a hand in his face or a body on him. I tried as much as I could to get him tired at the end.”

The difference between the two is that Pierce is a star and James is a superstar. Pierce might be seen anonymously hawking basketballs or shoes in his infrequent TV commercials, but James is playing four comical characters in his “Meet the LeBrons” Nike commercials, or he's a blast as a host on “Saturday Night Live.”

James is making more from commercial endorsements from Nike, Sprite, Powerade, Bubblicious, and Upper Deck than he and Pierce are making combined in NBA salaries. It's been estimated that he's earning $157 million from endorsements -- $97 million from Nike.

Most importantly, James almost single-handedly got a good Cleveland team to the NBA Finals last season, his second playoff appearance. In his first appearance, James led the Cavs to the Conference Finals, where they blew a 3-2 lead to the Pistons. Last season, the Cavs fell behind the Pistons, 2-0, in the Eastern Finals, coming back to win four straight, but they were summarily swept by the Spurs in the NBA Finals.

It was a huge step for the youngster-who-looks-like-an-older-guy, but if it was perceived as a stepping stone to bigger and better things, that might have to wait. For one thing, the Celtics received an immediate pass into the Eastern Conference Hall of Fame when they acquired Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen, James Posey and Eddie House, perhaps making another Pierce-James duel unnecessary.

James has been doing his part to keep the Cavs afloat – at 8-6, they're not exactly floundering -- but the team has had all kinds of problems with big, active Anderson Varejao holding out and Sasha Pavlovic getting a late start for the same reason.

“I need my soldiers here to play,” James said earlier in the season.

On top of that, key soldiers Donyell Marshall and Cedric Simmons have been injured, depleting the core group of players further.

Yet, the Cavs have won three straight on the heels of James' back-to-back triple-doubles.

“We're playing some good basketball, and I'm the catalyst of that,” James said. “The best thing about it, we got three straight wins and that's good. We got a little streak going.”

James carries on on a nightly basis, playing as energized today as he did as an 18-year-old in Akron.

“He just looks really comfortable in his skin,” Bucks coach Larry Krystkowiak said after his team handed the Cavs their last loss. “It's like he's arrived and he's carrying the team. When a guy can almost average a triple-double with the kind of attention he gets, I think that's pretty impressive. And from a defensive point of view, he's playing 41 minutes a game, and doing what he's doing defensively is pretty darned impressive.”

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